An exhaustive and authoritative investigation into the Christadelphians with links from their own sources as well as insights from former members. Complete examination of their history, organisation, theology, practices, and the challenges they face.

Necessary Considerations Regarding Scripture

The Christadelphians present their faith as a “logical faith” that a person discovers
as a result of a personal examination of what the Bible says. It is not portrayed
as a result of emotion or a religious experience and should not be because of the
easy acceptance of a church tradition (despite having their own traditions).
Faith is asserted to rest on the authority of scripture which is believed can be
proven. This is primarily done by appealing to fulfilled prophecy. Given
particular emphasis is the return of the Jews to Israel in 1948. Another prophecy
which is often used is a prophecy in the Book of Daniel which refers to a succession
of four empires.

The whole position rests on the sufficiency of scripture. In practice, though,
a few convincing passages doesn’t prove much. A person has to investigate
deeper than that before that position can be considered sound. Some of this
is considered on the section on
the Bible. For instance the Bible is not a book, but rather is two
libraries of books, the Old Testament and the New Testament. One passage alone doesn’t
prove the whole. It requires a complete knowledge of the Bible to be easily
able to answer such questions. It also requires some examination of how the
canon was compiled and how it came to us and whether in that process the Bible alone
was the position adopted or is a subsequent later position. The evidence favours
the second position as does internal evidence from the Bible itself.

If we accept these premises we have to then consider in what form the Bible is sufficient.
Most Christians do not ascribe infallibility to the translators and therefore they
are considered inerrant in the original languages of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic.
Since all translations are compiled from the originals as far as possible we have
to ask how accurate the originals actually are. Although we don’t have any
originals, there is no lack of ancient copies of the New Testament particularly
in libraries around the world. Although there is no absolute way to prove
accuracy of transmission there are more ancient copies of the Bible than most other
ancient books. These do not totally agree with each other and so what the
translators do is compile from these a text that is considered to be the most likely
from which to translate. This can be based upon the age of the texts available
or the common consistency between the majority of them. A common claim of
newer translations is that they use material unavailable before. Some claim certain
modern texts discovered such as the
Codex Sinaticus and
Codex Alexandrinus although older are less accurate.

Having a weight of texts also helps answers questions about whether the Bible has
been altered to bolster religious views. Scholarly opinion as a result does
reject certain passages and some modern Bibles leave out certain verses in older
translations. An example is 1 John 5v7-8 called the
Comma Johanneum which supports the mainstream Trinitarian formulas.
Again without having originals no one can totally prove what we have matches the
originals. Some light has also been found in such discoveries in recent times
of ancient copies of Bible books such as the
Dead Sea Scrolls. These have found differences to be minor, but included
as scriptures such books as the Book of Enoch (which the Ethiopian church still
accepts) and the Book of Jubilees in large quantities.

The next factor is that the languages in which we read the Bible are not the original
languages. Even though people today speak Hebrew and Greek they are not the
ancient forms in which the Bible was written. Scholars continue to debate
and refine their understandings of the ancient languages and so the Bible is today
translated from a compiled text considered nearest the original and using dictionaries
based upon the best current understanding of the languages. This has to take
into account not just dictionary word meanings, but also the context and sense of
passages. In other words the semantic pragmatic nature of language.
It also has to be done within the fact that these differ in rules between languages.
All translations in some way are a compromise which carries the possibility of bias
of understanding of the translators. This is especially relevant to the Christadelphians
because many of their doctrinal claims are based upon arguments regarding the root
meanings of words.

To independently search out the truth as advised by Christadelphians therefore leads
to discussions about having the right translation, using concordances to look up
root words and is far more involved than simply reading the Bible in a modern translation.
This is why a common approach to converting people is based upon a course called
“Learn how to Read the Bible Effectively” where it can take 12 weeks to be ready
to start.

In fact to objectively and independently search for truth the Christadelphian way
is the kind of work that a scholar would try to accomplish in a lifetime.
And that’s to be ready for baptism. It’s a hopelessly complex method for most
people. It postulates a God who requires scholarship for salvation.